Ruth Scodel

D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan  
         
My research is mostly on Greek literature, especially Homer and Greek tragedy (for a list of my publications, click here), though I have also done some work in Hellenistic poetry and a Bryn Mawr Commentary on Lysias 1, and I regularly teach a class on Ovid.  My current projects include a new textbook on the Iliad and yet another Homer book, this one about social interactions in the Homeric poems ("facework").

 I also dabble in the study of films about ancient Rome.  My colleague Anja Bettenworth and I have made abstracts of some of our planned articles available at our Roman movie page.  

I am devoted to country dance and am a member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, The Country Dance and Song Society, and a very active member of the Ann Arbor Council for Traditional Music and Dance.  Also, I have choreographed a couple of dances, one strathspey to honor Kendra Eshleman's doctorate and a slightly tricky but (I hope) fun English dance to the "Parson's Farewell" tune.

When my daughter was young, I made up a series of fairy tales characterized by circularity.  Anyone desperate for new bedtime stories is welcome to these, which have been performed at family dance camps with some success:

Soup

The Shell from the Islands
Silkies

The Road
The Princess Saved by Music

Also, I cook, especially cheap-and-nourishing soups developed in my poor-student days.  Although I don't have the time to post recipes, impecunious students should try split pea made with Italian turkey sausage (vegetarians just use fennel seed) and kale or collards; lentils with greens and cranberries (add them at the very end and cook about five minutes); and pinto beans with brown rice and canned corn, tomatoes, and green chilis.